


Gone.

by rheiginn but dumber (Rheiginn), tr_ello (q_ello)



Category: Bleach
Genre: Angst, Drabble Collection, Drama, Gen, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25268920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rheiginn/pseuds/rheiginn%20but%20dumber, https://archiveofourown.org/users/q_ello/pseuds/tr_ello
Summary: Three redheads, one idea.
Relationships: Ichimaru Gin & Matsumoto Rangiku, Kuchiki Rukia & Kurosaki Ichigo, Ulquiorra Cifer & Inoue Orihime
Kudos: 2





	1. 1.

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Нет.](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/648511) by Хана_Вишнёвая. 



> timeline: the end of arrancar arc

Kurosaki Ichigo.

Sixteen years old.

Redhead.

The Substitute Shinigami.

The former Shinigami.

Ichigo kicks a tin can with his boot sole, and it hits a street lamp, scraping offended. Kurosaki doesn't even watch its fly, because he already knows where it will fall into.

He doesn't aim. Maybe, that's why he doesn't miss.

If only it could always be like this.

The army of Aizen is crushed to pieces, soldiers themselves are defeated.

Dead.

Ichigo didn't want to kill them. Grimmjow, who was eccentric, kind of similar to him. Ulquiorra, who was reaching his hand to Inoue. Or anyone else. Ichigo feels like he's a destroyer of destinies, a killer and a filth, but he doesn't even feel terrified anymore.

Ichigo is simply and quite obviously tired. He can barely stand, he barely carries on, and what he wants the most is just to stop keeping his balance and to bury his nose in asphalt. Maybe, even to break this nose. Who's to blame that it's always sticking out?

He closes his eyes and falls into the void, where he hears the laugh of his the most scary nightmare — his own.

No one catches him.

Rukia's gone.

She's just gone, and that's it. She didn't die, she wasn't forgotten, moreover, she's safe and sound, but she's gone. She's not in the closet, whispering and bratty, she's not in the kitchen with his sisters, she's not on the streets, she's not in the toy stores.

She's nowhere, no matter how hard he searched for.

So he's gone with Rukia either.

Ichigo remembers, how she said once, that he's just like Kaien. She didn't want him to hear, but it just happened somehow that these words stabbed him like branding iron, and for some reason red Shinigami felt... hurt?.. blank?..

Well, he felt something. As if someone dropped a bag of dirt on his head.

As if someone tried to make him a substitute.

Rukia loved him, Ichigo saw it in her eyes. Even if he was only a jerk with hero complex, he still knew it.

And he ran back and forth, from himself to himself.

And he didn't know what to do.

Because he felt sorry for Rukia who lost her loved one.

Because he felt sorry for himself who perfectly fitted to take Kaien's role.

He recalls it eagerly, scrolls through pictures in his mind, like with film projector, and he realizes that he lost Rukia, too.

That he would go crazy, if he saw someone like her.

But he would never get close.

Not because he knows that people are not some things so that you could replace them with someone.

Not because he's suddenly very sensitive or he's afraid to hurt someone's feelings.

It's just Rukia's gone. And he doesn't need anyone else.

Ichigo stops near the street lamp and leans on it with his forehead. The can lays near his feet. It seems to be the same street lamp, where that little girl was the day, when his life has been flipped upside down.

He will never see again that little girl, too.

He should bring flowers, probably.

Ichigo buries himself, looking in front of him with blank eyes.

The thing is just that...

...Rukia's ****gone****.


	2. 2.

Matsumoto Rangiku.

The age is long forgotten.

Redhead.

The Shinigami.

The lieutenant of the tenth Division.

Rangiku wearily drops her head on the papers and thinks that almost nothing changed after the Aizen's losing. Captain is still a nerd, there are still many of papers, and she still has to spend her night in her cabinet.

Rangiku looks at the clock with a heavy gaze, and it starts to run, as if it felt something.

The clock feels, and Rangiku doesn't.

If only it could always be like this.

The army of Aizen is crushed to pieces, and soldiers themselves fell.

And so did Gin, her white-haired Captain, her smiling boy from their childhood.

He died in her arms.

It seems to be the summer in Seireitei, but Rangiku reluctantly comes out even from her cabinet. She breathes in the dust and ink, avoids the sun light and obviously fades, because she doesn't know where she has to go and why she has to do that.

She has no idea what to do with herself, because she's not a hero.

Because when, for once, she wanted to be the one, she couldn't.

Rangiku shattered to thousands of little pieces, to stained glass mosaic, which you won't be able to piece together even in a thousand years.

It's so strange to her, to red fox, to realise that she's... left alone. No, she's not really alone, because guys are with her, because she smiles to them and laughs with her deep chest voice, because...

Rangiku is left without her fox. White, polar and very freedom-loving.

And, probably, not hers at all.

She remembers Gin leaving. Now she feels almost physical pain when she remembers it, but he was still alive back then. And he already knew for sure what he were getting into.

"I wanted my Rangiku to never cry again".

Matsumoto would survive, if he punched her, if he killed her with his own hands, if he mumbled "I hate you" before his death.

She would survive everything that could happen. Everything, but these words.

Rangiku is broken with no possibility to rehabilitate.

Rangiku, already dead, wants to die completely.

She recalls Gin and longs to forget at the same time. She buries her nose in the papers and breathes in the smell of ink. She recalls the words of catholic prays, but she genuinely doesn't understand whom she has to pray to. Gotei-13 doesn't do miracles, moreover, it doesn't believe in them at all.

"Be glad, Maria", Rangiku repeats with her lips only. "You took the most precious from me".

She will burn an incense stick later, and she will serve a requiem for herself.

Gin's ****gone****.

And Rangiku... Rangiku's gone a long time ago, too.


	3. 3.

Inoue Orihime.

Sixteen years old.

Redhead.

Alive.

Still-alive.

Orihime laughs to herself and adds more honey to her lunch. She likes sweets, and they didn't give it to her at all when she was trapped in Hueco Mundo.

It was a bullying, no doubt. Orihime didn't get it, why they even needed her back then, if Aizen could in one moment just tear Kurosaki-kun apart and then pretend he didn't see anything. She still doesn't get it now.

All those words about the divine power and bravery, all those blank and bombastic, but, of course, lovely phrases, it's all like an Ulquiorra's favorite word.

Trash.

Orihime ties up a pretty bow and puts the box in the fridge.

And tries not to get into there herself.

The army of Aizen is crushed to pieces, and soldiers themselves lost.

More than anything, Orihime wanted to choose a path with the least destruction. A path, where the only death could happen was hers. Orihime would give everything so that it would be like this, she wouldn't mind giving herself away, but it's just that determination of the little sunny princesses is in inverse proportion to their power.

Orihime failed.

She didn't save.

She didn't do anything.

Orihime just got tired, she was just exhausted, and now she is just sick of making excuses, because she knows it's useless. It doesn't change a thing, and this void will always eat her from inside, especially at night, when she's helpless.

Orihime gets down on the windowsill, too tired, and leans on glass with her forehead.

She really wants to cry, but she can't.

In dungeon it was the opposite, she could even hit walls for a change, she could bang her head at the door or the harsh guard, who learned to look at her with the expression "you're definitely nuts".

Orihime keeps recalling: his half-insane and lively eyes, when she punched him in the face, it even seemed that he would kill her right here back then. And when he secretly brought chocolate for her. Orihime chokes on these memories, as she choked on her tears before, she suffocates in it, almost drowns.

She doesn't want to come up and realize, that she's finally home, that she's alive, and that she has to go to school tomorrow. That the war is over.

That Ulquiorra's gone.

Her harsh guard, who died in the battle.

And she is gone, too.

She failed to reach him.

Orihime draws a heart on the glass with her nose, and she herself doesn't know what is she waiting for.

She wants to close her eyes and disappear.

Dissolve. Turn to ashes.

While smiling.

It will be the dawn in an hour and a half, so it's time to get ready for school. She will smile and giggle, watching the reaction of her friends at her lunch, and even if she makes eye contact with Kurosaki-kun, she won't get clouded.

Orihime is a good actress, much better than the too honest former red Shinigami.

There's no way she will expose herself, she will never make a hint that it hurts her.

Ulquiorra wouldn't approve it.

And it doesn't matter much that he's ****gone****.


End file.
